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is it true most AI was based on logic stuff? no wonder it failed. it's like making a building out of iron legos and wondering why it isn't flexible

by tokipin 18y ago

angstrom 18y ago
For a good read on the subject of AI and how humans think check out the book OnIntelligence by Jeff Hawkins. It covers some about the previous attempts at AI and why they failed. http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/0805074562 http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/080507456...
- pchristensen 18y ago
  That book is in my top 5 favorite books ever!
  - 9oliYQjP 18y ago
    I keep hearing about this book. Can anybody tell me if it is a pseudo-scientific look at the topic? I don't mean this in a particularly negative way. Rather, what I mean is does it put forth a lot of as-yet unsubstantiated claims perhaps backed up with some hand-waving analysis?
    - pchristensen 18y ago
      Jeff Hawkins (the author, creator of PalmPilot) has always been interested in how the brain works, and once he made his Palm money, he started a neuroscience institute. That research along with his own and what he read led him to his theory of how the brain works. It's extracted from lots of real, hard research. He then started a company (Numenta http://www.numenta.com/ http://www.numenta.com/) to create a software implementation of that theory, which has a set of tools you can download and play with. They've had good results consistent with the theories in the book and had some impressive results. There's also a recording of a talk he gave at an O'Reilly conference: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3499.html http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3499.html So long story short, it is for real. When I read it, I had to stop every 20 minutes or so to catch my breath I found it so exciting and enlightening.
    - andreyf 18y ago
      The book is great. His criticisms are spot-on. His proposed solution is bold, but as of yet, unproven. It's probably wrong, and in a way, he admits to that in the book (he says we'll need a lot of changes). If you get bored on chapters 6, skip it.
      - lacker 18y ago
        I second the recommendation of skipping chapter 6 - when I read this comment I went to check where my bookmark is because I had gotten bored while re-reading, and it was near the start of chapter 6 ;-)
    - lacker 18y ago
      It is not "scientific" in the sense that it does not prove its claims. But it's not "pseudo-scientific" either because it doesn't pretend it's proving claims. It's more like a book of interesting ideas from a smart guy written for a general audience. It's different from most AI in that it's very focused on drawing inspiration from neurobiology, while still being written from a "computer guy" perspective. Here's an excerpt that might give you an idea of what it's like. It's in support of one of his key points, that many current AI methods ignore the role of change over time, whereas in your brain it's crucial. "You know the alphabet. Try saying it backward. You can't because you don't usually experience it backward. Your memory of the alphabet is a sequence of patterns. It isn't something stored or recalled in an instant or in an arbitrary order. The same thing does for the days of the week, the months of the year, your phone number, and countless other things. "Your memory for songs is a great example of temporal sequences in memory. Think of a tune you know. I like to use 'Somewhere over the Rainbow.' You cannot imagine the entire song at once, only in sequence. You can start at the beginning or with the chorus, and then you play through it, filling in the notes one after another. You can't recall the song backward, just as you can't recall it all at once. You were first exposed to 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' as it played through time, and you can only recall it in the same way you learned it." Other interesting discussions are around the role of feedback and hierarchy in the brain's structure. I recommend this book to anyone who's a good programmer with some interest in AI.
lacker 18y ago
Yes, when the field of AI first sprang up it was focused on logical deduction. In retrospect it may seem doomed to failure, but this is partially because our notion of "what artificial intelligence means" changes over time. There's a joke about this - "Artificial intelligence is just whatever computers can't do yet." Before chess-playing computers, a lot of people thought that chess required a lot of real intelligence, and if you could play chess well, that was a sign of intelligence. It's not unreasonable - for humans playing chess well is a pretty good sign of intelligence. But then we got chess playing computers that obviously weren't "intelligent like people are". So nowadays it seems obvious to us that playing chess isn't a real sign of intelligence. So it's not that the logic-driven approach to AI failed. It succeeded at a lot of things that previously humans could do, but computers couldn't. Like playing chess. It just didn't get all the way to the Turing test.

is it true most AI was based on logic stuff? no wonder it failed. it's like making a building out of iron legos and wondering why it isn't flexible

by tokipin 18y ago

is it true most AI was based on logic stuff? no wonder it failed. it's like making a building out of iron legos and wondering why it isn't flexible

angstrom 18y ago

For a good read on the subject of AI and how humans think check out the book OnIntelligence by Jeff Hawkins. It covers some about the previous attempts at AI and why they failed. http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/0805074562 http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Jeff-Hawkins/dp/080507456...

pchristensen 18y ago
That book is in my top 5 favorite books ever!
- 9oliYQjP 18y ago
  I keep hearing about this book. Can anybody tell me if it is a pseudo-scientific look at the topic? I don't mean this in a particularly negative way. Rather, what I mean is does it put forth a lot of as-yet unsubstantiated claims perhaps backed up with some hand-waving analysis?
  - pchristensen 18y ago
    Jeff Hawkins (the author, creator of PalmPilot) has always been interested in how the brain works, and once he made his Palm money, he started a neuroscience institute. That research along with his own and what he read led him to his theory of how the brain works. It's extracted from lots of real, hard research. He then started a company (Numenta http://www.numenta.com/ http://www.numenta.com/) to create a software implementation of that theory, which has a set of tools you can download and play with. They've had good results consistent with the theories in the book and had some impressive results. There's also a recording of a talk he gave at an O'Reilly conference: http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3499.html http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3499.html So long story short, it is for real. When I read it, I had to stop every 20 minutes or so to catch my breath I found it so exciting and enlightening.
  - andreyf 18y ago
    The book is great. His criticisms are spot-on. His proposed solution is bold, but as of yet, unproven. It's probably wrong, and in a way, he admits to that in the book (he says we'll need a lot of changes). If you get bored on chapters 6, skip it.
    - lacker 18y ago
      I second the recommendation of skipping chapter 6 - when I read this comment I went to check where my bookmark is because I had gotten bored while re-reading, and it was near the start of chapter 6 ;-)
  - lacker 18y ago
    It is not "scientific" in the sense that it does not prove its claims. But it's not "pseudo-scientific" either because it doesn't pretend it's proving claims. It's more like a book of interesting ideas from a smart guy written for a general audience. It's different from most AI in that it's very focused on drawing inspiration from neurobiology, while still being written from a "computer guy" perspective. Here's an excerpt that might give you an idea of what it's like. It's in support of one of his key points, that many current AI methods ignore the role of change over time, whereas in your brain it's crucial. "You know the alphabet. Try saying it backward. You can't because you don't usually experience it backward. Your memory of the alphabet is a sequence of patterns. It isn't something stored or recalled in an instant or in an arbitrary order. The same thing does for the days of the week, the months of the year, your phone number, and countless other things. "Your memory for songs is a great example of temporal sequences in memory. Think of a tune you know. I like to use 'Somewhere over the Rainbow.' You cannot imagine the entire song at once, only in sequence. You can start at the beginning or with the chorus, and then you play through it, filling in the notes one after another. You can't recall the song backward, just as you can't recall it all at once. You were first exposed to 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' as it played through time, and you can only recall it in the same way you learned it." Other interesting discussions are around the role of feedback and hierarchy in the brain's structure. I recommend this book to anyone who's a good programmer with some interest in AI.

lacker 18y ago

Yes, when the field of AI first sprang up it was focused on logical deduction. In retrospect it may seem doomed to failure, but this is partially because our notion of "what artificial intelligence means" changes over time. There's a joke about this - "Artificial intelligence is just whatever computers can't do yet." Before chess-playing computers, a lot of people thought that chess required a lot of real intelligence, and if you could play chess well, that was a sign of intelligence. It's not unreasonable - for humans playing chess well is a pretty good sign of intelligence. But then we got chess playing computers that obviously weren't "intelligent like people are". So nowadays it seems obvious to us that playing chess isn't a real sign of intelligence. So it's not that the logic-driven approach to AI failed. It succeeded at a lot of things that previously humans could do, but computers couldn't. Like playing chess. It just didn't get all the way to the Turing test.